Narita Airport

At least 27 passengers were injured when a Northwest Airlines Boeing 747 hit turbulence over the Pacific on Wednesday, a Japanese official said. The official at Narita international airport, northeast of Tokyo, said the plane, carrying 117 passengers and 13 crew, ran into turbulence and dropped sharply about 40 minutes after it left the Pacific island of Saipan for Tokyo.

May 30, 2008 | John M. Glionna and Charles Ornstein, Times Staff Writers

UCLA Medical Center and its most accomplished liver surgeon provided a life-saving transplant to one of Japan's most powerful gang bosses, law enforcement sources told The Times. In addition, the surgeon performed liver transplants at UCLA on three other men who are now barred from entering the United States because of their criminal records or suspected affiliation with Japanese organized crime groups, said a knowledgeable law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

A Boeing 747 jumbo jet is scheduled to touch down Sunday at Tokyo's Narita International Airport laden with an unusual cargo: 9,720 cases of Coors beer. The shipment is the first planned by Adolph Coors Co. to meet what it describes as an unexpected demand for Coors beer. The Golden, Colo., brewery said it will ship 3 million pounds of beer to Japan this summer because its Japanese licensee, Ashai Breweries Ltd., can't make enough.

A Northwest Orient Boeing 747 from Los Angeles blew eight of its 16 tires after landing at Narita International Airport today but stopped safely with no injuries to the 386 passengers and crew aboard, police said. Several hours earlier, a Japan Air Lines DC-10 bound for Seoul developed engine trouble as it was preparing to take off from Osaka, but none of the 271 passengers and crew was injured. The flight was canceled and the passengers flew to Seoul on another plane.

Japan's first survey of "economy class syndrome" found Thursday that 25 passengers have died of the condition at Tokyo's Narita airport in the last eight years, a figure likely to put pressure on airlines to tackle the issue. According to the study by a clinic at Narita airport, 100 to 150 passengers arriving in Tokyo on long-distance flights are treated each year for the problem, believed to be caused by immobility and cramped seating on long flights.

Tokyo Customs punished three of its officers for secretly slipping drugs into travelers' luggage more than 160 times at Narita International Airport to train dogs, an official said. In May, one of the officers slipped cannabis resin into an outside pocket of luggage belonging to a traveler from Hong Kong, but a dog failed to detect it, agency spokesman Kazutoshi Takahashi said. Once the officer realized the drugs and unsuspecting traveler had left the airport, he panicked and told his bosses.

Delta Flight 635, a hulking 747-400, pulled out of Terminal 5 at LAX early Saturday and arrived at Tokyo's Haneda airport 11 hours later. No big deal under normal circumstances. On the day after the worst quake in Japanese history, it was a small step toward normalcy. Photos: Scenes from the earthquake Four LAX flights into and out of Tokyo’s two airports were scheduled Saturday, and as of midday they were close to being on schedule. Delta Flight 284 from Narita airport in Tokyo arrived at LAX in the late morning, and Flight 283 left LAX for the return trip about 45 minutes after its scheduled noon departure.

Paul McCartney, in Tokyo to perform for the first time in 24 years, told reporters today he has no hard feelings about Japan's 1980 decision to bar him for a drugs offense. McCartney last visited with the Beatles in 1966. He was arrested at Tokyo's Narita Airport in January, 1980, after customs officers found marijuana in his luggage. He was held for nine days before leaving the country. Japan normally bans foreigners with drug convictions from re-entering the country.

Two Japan Airlines jetliners with nearly 700 people aboard narrowly avoided an in-flight collision Wednesday after at least one of the planes dived quickly to get out of the other's path. Thirty-five people were injured, three seriously. One pilot, Makoto Watanabe, filed a report saying the distance between the two planes was only about 35 feet, said Yoshihito Nakatsuji, an official at the Safety Inspection Division of the Ministry of Transportation.